Mysterious symptoms....what could this be??
Hi there! I'm a 19 year old female and I have been experiencing episodes of strange symptoms that tend to go away and then come back again months later. A couple of years ago, I started getting a persistent headache that was not severe, and moved all around my head. It had qualities of migraines, cluster headaches, tension headaches, etc. During that period of time, I also developed muscle fasciculations literally all over along with intermittent blurred vision (like a cloud of blurriness that would go away after blinking several times or yawning) in just one eye (my good eye...as the other is a lazy eye) and I one time I almost blacked out (however, this was low blood sugar I believe, from not eating that morning).
Btw, the only medical diagnosis I had was IBS (if that makes any difference). I also have a history of meningitis (when I was 5), and recovered within a few years from all the sequelae.
SO anyways...I went to various specialists (neurologist, opthomologist, rheumatologist, nutritionist, etc) and they couldn't find anything wrong. MRI was normal too (apparently when I had an MRI at the age of 5, the doc said I had some kind of cluster of nerves in my brain that my mom and I both have, and that it's nothing to worry about and won't cause any symptoms. Chiari maybe? However, there was no mention of anything like this on the more current MRI). Blood tests only indicated anemia and vitamin D deficiency. My neurologist couldn't figure out why I was having these symptoms, however, he arbitrarily diagnosed me with chronic daily headaches. My PCP thought that I might have been getting menstrual headaches (as I get very severe cramps and I have irregular ish periods), but again, that couldn't account for the other symptoms.
These symptoms lasted about 3-4 weeks and I had to take time off of school (junior year). My anxiety went through the roof, I thought I had every disease out there. I did extensive research and became more educated on these diseases than the doctors 😂
Soon enough, the symptoms ALL dissipated and I went about my normal life...UNTIL about a year later. EVERY SINGLE SYMPTOM came back and again, lasted for about 3-4 weeks! I was at a loss....the doctors were also at a loss. My platelet count got a little bit lower than normal, but it turned out to be nothing aside from bad anemia according to the blood doc. After about a month, the symptoms dissipated and I was back to normal again.
Fast forward to present day... I'm living in the dorms at my university, and low and behold....THE SYMPTOMS ARE BACK! Exactly the same symptoms. This time around, however, the only difference I noticed is that in my left eye (good eye) I see starbursts/glare when I'm looking at lights at night especially LED lights (like on an appliance)....and it's only in this eye, not the other one. I remember that I had this same experience when I was much younger, but I suppose I didn't think it was abnormal. Also, my headache is on my left hemisphere for the most part, but it does tend to move around and come/go as it pleases.
The worrisome part for me is that, even if these symptoms go away again, I want to know WHY this is happening so that I can get the proper treatment. It aggravates me so much that doctors don't tend to take things seriously...it just discourages me from getting more opinions. I feel like I'm on Mystery Diagnosis...and I'm afraid that if the docs are missing something serious, it could be too late....(yeah, my anxiety, I know)
Another thing is that I'm in University for pre-med, as I plan to become a doctor...and I really don't want these symptoms to keep interfering with my life and passions.
Any thoughts on this would surely be appreciated.
Thanks a bunch!
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